Now that Forza Motorsport 4 developer Turn 10 Studios and finally “found the right terms,” you can have in your Forza. The Porsche Expansion Pack will be available for 1,600 MS points or $19.99, and will reward you with 30 products from the Stuttgart maker including the 2010 . Turn 10 says that seven of the 30 will be completely new to the series, which probably means you can expect the return of classics from Forza 3 like the 962.
The pack isn’t included in the game’s Season Pass, but your Porsche Expansion Pack won’t just get cars, either: there will be 20 new events, 10 XBox Live achievements and a Rivals Mode all based on Porsches as well. The pack is scheduled to be available on May 22 and will take FM4’s car count (with DLCs) to 625. The licensing deal isn’t long-term, so if Porsches are your thing you should mark May 22 on your calendar.
The other two new events on the Forza 4 horizon are that level caps have been raised from 150 to 999, and a new game called Forza Horizon is on the way. It’s being developed by an outside studio called Playground Games and no one seems to know anything about it beyond Turn 10’s assessment that “it’s a fast-paced pick-up-and-play racing game.” There’s a video trailer for Horizon which won’t tell you anything more than you already know, but sounds pretty cool.
This is the production version of the Ford Fiesta ST, and except for the fact that it’s missing a couple of doors, it looks just like the we saw at the last year. Of course, the two-door version is cooler, which should be all the clue you need that we won’t be getting it in America. Ford is, however, “open to the idea” of bringing it here.
The specs match the concept: 1.6-litre EcoBoost with 177 horsepower and a top speed beyond 125 miles per hour, along with torque vectoring, three ESP stages and Ford’ MyKey – all of which should make it a fabulously good time when it goes on sale in Europe in 2013.
A “pre-production” example will get a showing at the tomorrow, and we’ll have a fuller report on it then, but there’s a with more details. Perhaps between the show and 2013, Ford can be convinced to ship it this way when it decides to “say more about our plans for other markets.”
Not to spoil the rest of this article, but the number one thing that the 2012 Fiat 500 Abarth has going for it is its styling. That isn’t to say the rest of the car isn’t worth writing home about – quite the contrary, actually – but if there’s one driving factor that makes you want to run to the dealership and spend your hard-earned dollars on an Abarth, it’s how it looks. You’ll read a vast variety of opinions across this great big Interweb about the 500 Abarth’s driving dynamics, interior refinement and value, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find one critic who considers the Abarth anything less than molto bella.
Smart, then, that the Chrysler Group chose to employ European goddess supermodel Catrinel Menghia for its starring the 500 Abarth, ending the 60-second commercial with the phrase, “You’ll never forget the first time you see one.”
So three months after we first met the North American-spec 500 Abarth in person at the , we finally got the chance to see if our lust for the cute little Italian runs more than skin-deep. On Fiat’s invitation we hit the roads – and track – around Las Vegas to see exactly how powerful the scorpion’s sting really is.
The has officially dropped the “Concept” portion of its name. Making the most of the rear quarters in the , the boffins at have installed power-folding wood veneer picnic tables that are topped by iPads and Bluetooth wireless keyboards, additionally controlled by Apple’s Magic trackpads. In the armrest are a telephone and a Tibaldi pen, and in the trunk is a Mac Mini computer.
None of that counts the eight-inch screens in the headrests or the 15.6-inch screen that drops from the roof. Those are controlled by the Bentley app installed on the iPads, with listening handled by Bluetooth headphones.
It takes 170 hours for the craftsmen to complete the work of installation, and if you need to ask how much their time adds to the cost of a Mulsanne, then you already know the answer. More details in the press release .
The E90-chassis is nearing the end of its production run, as based on the . As is typical when there’s a , sales and marketing feel the need to goose the current model to maintain interest. Here in the States, we saw something like that in the , while BMW’s British outpost is readying its own exclusive model, the Limited Edition 500.
Available as either a coupe or convertible, the Limited Edition 500 will be unsurprisingly limited to 500 cars. Each will receive a “laser cut” trim piece on the dash identifying it as such, and the palette will consist of just three colors: Imola Red, Mineral White or Santorini Blue. Other than that, there’s not much to report here, as the Limited Edition 500 is mechanically identical to the bog-standard M3, which is to say both wonderfully precise and rev-happy.
The big attraction, then, is the bundled equipment, which BMW describes as “well over £4,000 worth of additional equipment included for only £1,000.” So some quick back-of-the-envelope math says those cheeky Brits are just offering a $4,500 discount on a nicely optioned M3. List price for the coupe is £55,690 (some $88,000 – including Britain’s infamous Value Added Tax), while the convertible runs £59,785 (almost $95,000).
Daimler’s minicar division will unveil both a battery-electric version of the Smart Brabus special-edition line and a Smart Brabus electric bike at the this year.
The Smart Brabus electric drive Fortwo will be available in 12 countries by the end of the year. Parent company Daimler notes the model will include touches such as 17-inch alloy wheels, an “electric green” interior. The diminutive runabout will deliver about 80 horsepower, though the German automaker hasn’t specified a single-charge range.
Meanwhile, Smart’s Brabus ebike will have an electric motor that will deliver 500 watts of power, enough for a top speed of 25 miles per hour. It will also be available at Smart dealers by the end of the year. Smart isn’t disclosing pricing on either the Brabus ForTwo EV or the new ebike but you can see both in our gallery.
Last month, Smart said it would start selling a in Europe starting this May. Smart will offer the red and black model in 71- and 84-horsepower versions in both hardtop and convertible configurations, and will make 1,800 Sharpreds.
Daimler last year sold about 102,000 Smart vehicles globally in 2011. While that number marked a 4.6 percent increase over 2010, Smart vehicles accounted for just 7.5 percent of all Daimler cars sold in 2011. Check out the complete press release .
The Seat Toledo Concept that we’ll see at the is the precursor for the Seat Toledo that will go on sale later this year in Spain – hence its description as a “close-to-production study.” The “study” part is how Seat has integrated its , and concepts into a production sedan, and how it plans to make that car “exceptionally good value for money.”
This will be the fourth generation of the Seat, which, in its 20-year lifespan, has been both a trunked vehicle and a five-door hatchback. This “concept” splits the difference: it looks like a three-box sedan but it’s actually a five-door hatchback. The liftgate at the rear helps it achieve a 500-liter cargo capacity.
As the Spanish brand’s version of the , it will enter the range under the Ibiza and above the Leon and be built on the AO-plus platform from parent company . Prices are €13,000 to €14,000. for a press release with more details.
-bound Seat Toledo showcar is a concept in name only
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the Barrett-Jackson hype machine, it’s that if you want to sell an old car for ungodly sums of money, it helps to . Which is why we’re somewhat shocked to see this Superbird fail to attract enough interest from bidders at the Atlantic City Classic Car Auction this past weekend.
The 1970 Plymouth Superbird you see above was formerly the property of the Environmental Protection Agency, which used it in some seminal air pollution tests, racing the car down a runway against a jet to measure emissions. The story is a fascinating piece of history, in that this particular Superbird was a product of NASCAR legend Ray Nichels, the chief race car builder for during the company’s prolific late 1960’s period.
Yet that wasn’t enough to push bidding past $175,000, so the car will go home to its current owner, Brian Chaffee of E-Muscle in Middlefield, CT. Chaffee spent three and a half years restoring the unique muscle car after acquiring it in 2006, missing the tail end of the historic run-up in muscle car prices in the process.
While the collector market has corrected itself during the past few years of economic uncertainty, the Hagerty Price Guide still lists #1 condition ‘70 Superbirds packing 440 power as $182,000 cars. So the top bid in Atlantic City was a few thousand light even for a car without such provenance.
NBA basketball fans who watched last year’s slam dunk contest on All-Star Weekend saw a by Blake Griffin over a , with an assist from former teammate Baron Davis, who passed Griffin the ball through the sedan’s moonroof.
To celebrate the one-year anniversary of the dunk, commissioned a spoof of the dunk for Funny or Die. The spot features Griffin and Jeff Goldblum, plus a “high-flying” Optima.
Will the Optima make the dunk over the 6′10 Griffin? Well, there’s a reason Blake’s calling for a timeout in the screengrab above. to watch.
Back in January we caught wind of a special edition McLaren MP4-12C dubbed the . A project of , the High Sport benefits from aerodynamic enhancements developed for the MP4-12C GT3 race car and features a new front end and rear bumper, larger vents and diffuser, a modified rear wing and unique wheels. Topping it all off, McLaren has boosted the twin-turbo 3.8L V8 by 75 horsepower, further increasing performance. Just five will be produced in total, all of which have already been spoken for.
At the time of our initial report, only a single low resolution photo and amateur video were available for the special edition McLaren. Thankfully that has been remedied, as the official photographer for McLaren Special Operations has sent us a stunning gallery that includes all five MP4-12C High Sport examples. You can see the entire set of photos in all its glory in the gallery above.
Another month, another pack of downloadable content for Forza Motorsport 4. This month’s DLC car pack, called the March Pirelli Car Pack, features 10 new cars that could potentially find their way into your Forza garage. Why call it the March Pirelli Car Pack? The team from Turn 10 Studios responsible for developing Forza Motorsport 4 says that actual tire performance data from Pirelli helped them dial in the most realistic handling possible for each car.
This month’s car pack includes some true gems, most notable of which is the Aston Martin V12 Zagato. As the was just revealed less than a month ago and won’t make its official debut until next week at the , the car in the game is the on which it’s based, though you’d be hard pressed to tell any differences between the two.
The most peculiar car in this month’s car pack is definitely the 1966 Ford Country Squire. The giant woody wagon comes from era of Country Squires that featured the Magic Door Gate, which both flipped down like a tailgate and swung open from the side. An interesting factoid, though Turn 10 says it doesn’t make a difference in the game.
We’re also excited to try the Ultima GTR, versions of which have set all sorts of world records related to speed and quickness. The version in the game is less powerful than those headline-makers, being powered by a Corvette engine producing 565 horsepower, but it still weighs just 2,200 lbs.
Check out the full list of 10 cars in the March Pirelli Car Pack below and for the official trailer. The pack will be available on Tuesday, March 6 for 560 MS points ($7) or is free for those who have already purchased the Season Pass.
Coming soon to select dealers, at least , is the most efficient five-passenger car in America, the 2012 Electric, which the EPA has certified gets 105 miles per gallon equivalent, combined. This is better than what the Blue Oval was estimating publicly in December, when it said the all-electric Focus . The Focus EV is also rated for 110 MPGe in the city and 99 MPGe on the highway. As you can read in the press release , Ford is using the official numbers to go after the for the all-electric passenger car market. Ford says its new electric car:
… achieves a combined rating of 105 MPGe, topping Nissan Leaf by 6 MPGe while also offering more motor power, passenger room and standard features. Customers can make more use of this efficiency with Ford’s faster charging technology that can recharge Focus Electric in about half the time of Nissan Leaf.
To compare with some other combined MPGe ratings for plug-in vehicles on the market or coming soon: the 2012 gets 94 MPGe (one better than ), the Plug-In Hybrid gets , the gets , the is rated at , and the current champion, the 2.0, officially gets .
The EPA also says the Focus EV will have a range of 76 miles. As Ford is quick to point out, again, that’s three miles more than the Leaf. Given the variances of EV ranges based on driving style and outside influences, those three miles won’t make all that much real-world difference to most people, but it does give the engineering team one more thing to brag about.
For all the comparisons that Ford makes in today’s announcement, it does leave one thing out: the Leaf’s one big numerical advantage. The 2012 Leaf , while the Focus EV .
Electric officially rated at 105 MPGe with a 76-mile range
Japan’s Nikkei news service is reporting that is dusting the cobwebs off its Datsun brand, dropped back in 1986, and preparing it for a return in 2014. Loyalists will be disappointed to learn that the “new” Datsun badge won’t be riveted to the nose of any upcoming Fairlady Z in the near future – it probably isn’t even coming to North America. Instead, the report indicates that Nissan will use Datsun as a backup brand for low-priced vehicles manufactured and sold in emerging Asian markets. According to the Nikkei, Datsun-branded vehicles will be priced about 500,000 yen ($6,200 USD) with annual sales goals of about 300,000 units.
have been circulating for years. But only now, with Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn pushing to expand the brand into new markets (e.g., Russia, India, Brazil and China), does it really start to make sense as way to protect the upmarket corporate Nissan identity from being associated with low-cost entry-level vehicles.
The return of Datsun is interesting, but a two-tier strategy is hardly new. For example, uses its entry-level SEAT and Skoda brands to capture the low-cost market (though the two have moved upscale), while (working with SAIC) Baojun to target first-time buyers in China. According to TheDetroitBureau.com, the Nikkei also notes that Nissan officials have not commented on the report.
Touring car series proliferate in countries around the globe. The UK has the British Touring Car Series, Germany has DTM, Australia has V8 Supercars, Japan has Super GT and Italy has the Superstars Series.
Most of these national championships are contested by grids limited to just a handful of manufacturers, but like the BTCC, the Superstars series is made up of cars from a seemingly endless array of automakers. , , , , , and are all represented in a grid of some 34 contenders, but while is the team to beat, the newest entry is coming from .
Just as Audi has replaced its -based touring car in the DTM series with a modeled after the , so has its Superstars series effort switched from the RS4 to a new RS5 that will challenge for wins this season. Considering that the outgoing RS4 seized the drivers’ title in 2007 and both titles in 2008, the new RS5 has big shoes to fill, and hopes to fill them with its 450 horsepower V8 and what looks like it will be a suitably aggressive body shell to maximize airflow to the engine and over the car.
Three cars will be entered in the series, including one from Audi Sport Italia driven by 2007 series champion and former grand prix driver Gianni Morbidelli, another fielded by German turner MTM and driven by Thomas Schoeffler, and a third piloted by Swedish driver Johan Kristofferson and fielded by his own team KMS. for the press release, and stay tuned to see how their new touring car shapes up.
What do you do when you want to cast your cute little city car as a truly bad ass performance machine? How about hiring an infamous drug enthusiast actor, a guy who insists he has “tiger blood” flowing through his veins?
Yes, that’s right, has enlisted none other than Charlie Sheen to promote its here in the States. Sheen’s appearance in the commercial is brief, portraying himself hot-shoeing the small car around a palatial home – indoors, during a party, mind you – while under “house arrest.” Sheen, of course, is the former star of Two and a Half Men, who was reportedly the highest-paid actor on television before being fired for badmouthing the show’s creator last year. Sheen’s antics also included demanding a 50 percent raise and threatening a lawsuit against his employers, despite being hospitalized for substance abuse-related issues at least three times.
The Abarth goes on sale this spring, while Sheen’s new FX series, Anger Management, premieres on Thursday, June 28 at 9 p.m.
Sending an all-electric vehicle up Pikes Peak is not new – a and a custom EV from – but that shouldn’t stop anyone from trying to reach the 14,110-foot height in Colorado better, faster and in a cooler car.
Enter and a radically reworked all-electric Prototype that will participate in the 2012 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb this July. Based on sketches released today, the car is a one-seat racer the certainly looks ready for on-track duty. It also looks nothing like the bean-shaped i-MiEV we’ve grown accustomed to. We’re certainly curious how well it’ll make the peak, since the powertrain is made up of “the same EV components as the current production i-MiEV” and it’ll be piloted by well-known driver Hiroshi Masuoka, who won the Dakar Rally in 2002 and 2003 behind the wheels of a Mitsubishi Pajero and Pajero Evolution, respectively.
The idea here, of course, isn’t just to have a good time. Mitsubishi will “use the data obtained through its participation in the event to enhance the durability and reliability of pure EVs and plug-inhybrid EVs which it will be bringing to market in the near future.” Read: , the and the .
I regret to inform you that despite what the image above indicates, Autoblog’s will again be passing hands without having been thoroughly tested in the type of inclement weather for which it’s been prepared. While we thought there was no way it would escape a February in Cleveland without slogging through weeks of snowfall, our Countryman’s Bridgestone Blizzak WS-70 winter tires only met the cold stuff once, and then for only a day or two before everything melted. As I write this monthly recap on Leap Day, February 29, the temperature outside is 60 degrees and the sunshine is reflecting off my computer screen and into my eyes. What the hell is going on?
Keep your eyes locked on the official for the majority of our updates, as well as the official Autoblog Twitter account (, look for the hashtag).
Chrysler Wins Again, Small Car Battle Brewing and Mustang Beats Camaro
Automakers love Leap Year. And why wouldn’t they? Who doesn’t love an extra day for selling? Actually, it turns out the extra day that Leap Year provides didn’t make that much of a difference, as there were 25 selling days in February of this year versus 24 last year. A variance of one day is not out of the norm for any month. Still, sales were so good last month that you’d think each automaker had an extra week.
Like last month, the best performer was again , both the brand and company, which saw sales rise 113.87 and 40.39 percent, respectively. The in particular, which just won our versus the , saw sales rise 480% to 7,670 units versus the same time last year.
Indeed, nearly every major automaker had positive news to report, except for General Motors and . While posted a positive 5.78-percent increase in sales and a narrow 0.14-percent rise, GM as a whole was dragged down by and especially , which reported drops of -11.29 and -27.04, respectively. In aggregate, GM reported a sales gain of just 1.10 percent, though its daily average sales rate was 2.94 percent below February of last year. In other words, GM sold about 254 vehicles less per day on average in February of this year than last.
If we go one level deeper and look at the sales of some individual models, the most interesting numbers were in the small car segment. Both the and have been leading the segment lately, but February saw the resurgence of both the and . Focus sales were up 115 percent to 23,350 units while Civic sales rose 36 percent to 27,086 units. Both vehicles sold more than the Corolla at 22,148 units and Cruze at 20,427 units. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that the finally posted a better month of sales than the : 7,351 to 6,923.
*Brands and companies are displayed in descending order according to their percentage change in volume sales. There were 25 selling days in February 2012 versus 24 selling days in February 2011, so there will be a difference between monthly sales volume and the average daily sales rate (DSR) for each brand/company. Also, brands are combined and reported as companies only if their sales figures are released jointly.
Over at HQ, the bubbly is flowing like high-octane unleaded. Of all the sports cars sold in the U.S. in 2011, 30 percent were either a or . Woo hoo! *POP!*
Take that, ! Take that, ! Take that, um, ? and ? Yeah, Camaro trounced all y’all! Beat Mustang by almost 18,000 cars and the Dodge Challenger by, wow, more than 48,000 units! And don’t even think about lining up your CR-Z next to a Camaro, ’cause you’ll get smoked!
In the big-ticket sports car class, the Corvette is still king. In fact, nearly as many Vettes were sold in 2011 as the , and the combined.
But back to the Camaro. Why is the (at minimum) 323-horsepower Camaro listed alongside the relatively anemic 122-hp Honda and 138-hp Hyundai? Smoke and mirrors from Chevy? Maybe, but probably not. They’re all two-door coupes… except for the Veloster which has three. They’re also all available in red and considered compact cars by the EPA…. except for the CR-Z, which is a two-seater. More likely, the three are in the same GM target market of 25-40-year-old males… who want to get 40 mpg while going 150 mph with the convenience of a hatchback?
We give up. Feel free to peruse the press release .
Around the Autoblog virtual office, the Toyota GT-86 is among the most eagerly awaited new models this year. So when we spotted a report in AutoBild that Tetsuya Tada, the chief engineer of the car, has confirmed that a convertible is coming, we got excited.
Of course, we’re tempering our excitement with the knowledge that the 2013 we’re getting here in North America isn’t the version. It may be the same actual car save for the brightwork, but when it comes to market positioning and all that stuff, has differing objectives than the parent brand.
While we have heard before, they came in the context of the third GT-86 offspring, the . If a convertible version of the car ever does see the light of day here in the States, though, we’re certainly not going to quibble over its badges.
Just as Audi has replaced its -based touring car in the DTM series with a modeled after the , so has its Superstars series effort switched from the RS4 to a new RS5 that will challenge for wins this season. Considering that the outgoing RS4 seized the drivers’ title in 2007 and both titles in 2008, the new RS5 has big shoes to fill, and hopes to fill them with its 450 
Automakers love Leap Year. And why wouldn’t they? Who doesn’t love an extra day for selling? Actually, it turns out the extra day that Leap Year provides didn’t make that much of a difference, as there were 25 selling days in February of this year versus 24 last year. A variance of one day is not out of the norm for any month. Still, sales were so good last month that you’d think each automaker had an extra week.
